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On principle (not exactly sure which one) I have steered clear of dressing my child in pink. This has resulted in 4 months of my daughter being referred to as 'he' but nevertheless I have stood my ground. I mostly dress in grey/black so as ever I'm sure there is an element of projection here, but I am just not a fan of all the overly 'girly' outfits in most of the high street stores.

Pink tutu material not included

I've had various drunken debates over the gender stereotyping of children and strongly feel that my daughter's worth should not be based on her appearance. I am aware of the unbearable irony that I am writing this as an incarnation of a wannabe beauty blogger whilst on maternity leave. Pot, kettle, black.

I love all things beauty and skincare - they give me enormous amounts of pleasure. That said, I would never want to be judged solely on what lip balm I was wearing. I work in a heavily male dominated domain where appearance ranks way down the pecking order. Balance is everything, and that is what I want for my daughter.

So having steered my daughter clear of frills and bows it has somehow transpired that her favourite object is a pink piece of glittery gauze we were given in a material shop. Dangling this rag in front of her, and particularly on her head, makes her giggle like no other artisan toy she has been presented with. I even found myself carrying it around with us the other, fractious day - advertising to the world that my daughter is conditioned to like sparkly, pretty objects.

Perhaps in this respect she is like her mother (I just referred to myself in the third person there - bit creepy). Although I normally stick to a monochrome palette I'm certainly not averse to a bit of colour and sparkle on my face.

And so to the Becca Shimmering Skin Perfector Poured in Opal. Now, I've never faired particularly well with highlighters or shimmer. I don't mind them in a primer (Laura Mercier radiance primer I LOVE you). But the actual highlighters have always made me look a bit tween or overdone.

I've also found that a lot of them change colour after they've been on your skin for a bit, so what starts out looking natural ends up looking like a tacky yellow stain sitting in your eye wrinkles after an hour or so. Nice.

Glitter - the herpes of the stationary world

Not so this little pot of Becca pixi dust. Being a creme it has an instant advantage of giving a bit of moisture and a gentle glow which is really subtle. It is also really easy to apply and blend giving a Midas touch of gold over your contoured cheek bones (ahem). I've done quite a lot of applications whilst mooching round the house and it really is rather nice - and like a lip balm, a bit addictive if in easy reach. It is £30 (so actually the equivalent of gold per ounce) and comes in 5 shades. I got mine, as ever, from Cult Beauty.

Is there a moral to this story? Probably not. My tentative conclusion is that shimmery sparkles appeal to young and old and as long as she reads Dostoevsky she can wear all the tutus she wants.